The goal of the confidence trick known as the three card Monte is not — as the trickster will insist — that you need to find the ‘lady.’
No, the trick is that you are their ‘mark.’ You are the fool that agreed to play in the first place.
You can’t win. Indeed, anyone in the crowd that wins so much as a single round can safely be assumed to be in on the scam.
There’s a word for such a person.
They are called shills.
Tomorrow, on February 28, 2017, members of the Republican-dominated House Judiciary Committee will play their part on the greatest confidence trick in American political history. Milling around the halls of power, masquerading as mere curious onlookers they will play shill to President Donald Trump’s Monte. In an act of stunning cowardice, the 22 men and 1 woman of the committee will betray their oath to uphold the constitution.
Because they will reject a Democrat-led Resolution calling for a formal inquiry into the Trump campaign’s potentially treasonous ties with Russia.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (On Trump)
It takes a while for the magnitude of their duplicity to sink in. As it stands, there is no hard evidence linking Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interference in the election process. As far as Republican members of the committee are concerned, such a position sits well inside their Goldilocks zone.
Fingers in ears, they have taken a stand.
And what a stand it is.
They simply don’t care if Trump is a traitor or not. If Putin is blackmailing Trump into taking actions detrimental to American interests, they could scarcely give a fuck.
If Trump sent U.S. soldiers into combat situations at Putin’s behest they would sleep no less soundly. Even if Trump was suspected of being an actual KGB plant they would simply shuffle their feet and slink quietly away into the shadows, determined to only speak out if circumstance forced them to.
Sure there could be a bogeyman in the closet ready to leap out and devour us all.
So why open the closet?
Partisan Like It’s 1861
How can this have come to pass?
The GOP have often been willing to play the bad guys. Pro-pollution, anti-transparency, big money-loving siphons of prosperity, oh sure we all knew that. But traitors? Actual honest to goodness betrayal of the country they purport to love?
That’s new. There are only two political camps left in America.
Those who oppose Trump.
And those who are prepared to prop up his regime.
In an article written last week’s New York Magazine, correspondent Jonathan Chait explained how it had come to this. Noting that the House had refused to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia, he asked what the next logical step would be?
The House’s response, we have already seen.
As Politico reported, it simply diverted:
“… The resolution to the House Judiciary Committee… It will be a minor story that probably receives scant or nonexistent coverage from television news, and then it will be quickly over. To be sure, coverage of Trump’s scandals will surely continue. But coverage of the House role in permitting Trump’s behavior will be extremely minimal.”
While Trump rants and rants and tweets we are expected to behave like the good little mark we are.
Take your eye off the card for one second. Look away.
Blink.
Tuesday will be a day when Trump pulls one of his more outrageous distractions.
And while he does, whilst we gawk at his stupidity or lack of tact, the House will be quietly fucking us over.
Little House Of The Care Free
It all comes down to accountability.
A public discussion is no good. Only an official inquiry will do. As Chait pointed out:
“The absence of subpoena power means Republicans can simply deny Trump has done anything wrong while blocking any efforts to acquire the evidence that would prove the case.”
He went on to note that:
“The problem — which is a long-standing one and has protected both parties over the decades — is that the chain of responsibility is too long and obscure to have any bearing on the average voter. The average House Republican votes for the party leadership, which then allocates decisions like this to individual committees, which can be stacked with partisan loyalists from safe districts.”
Adding that:
“If you are a voter in the district of one of the House Republicans who might be vulnerable in a potential Democratic wave election, who do you blame? Well, in January, your representative voted for the leadership that decided to shunt the resolution of inquiry to the Judiciary Committee, that will vote … but you can already see the problem. Your district’s representative had no direct involvement in the decision. There won’t be any dramatic coverage of his floor vote, as would be the case for a major law. At best, an effective pressure campaign at home might persuade your representative to endorse an investigation, but that endorsement would be toothless anyway since Paul Ryan is calling the shots.”
The Unaccountables
It’s not like there is zero accountability of course. The GOP is operating under a cloak of plausible deniability. they are able to face off constituents simply by pointing out that the evidence against Trump — though mounting — is still circumstantial. The press has yet to get hold of the silver bullet they need to drop the President into the kind of scandal that even he cannot lie his way out of.
If and when they do, Republican Congressmen will change their tune more quickly than a set of bagpipes in a hurricane.
Until then the real test of accountability rests with the option to reject the party wholesale in the upcoming 2018 elections. Not that we’ll have to wait that long. As Saturday’s State Senate race demonstrated, the backlash against Trump has already found its teeth.
Democrat Stephanie Hansen’s 58-42 percent victory over Republican John Marino is only the first shot fired at a new administration that a majority of Americans disapprove of.
It won’t be the last.
Watch an up to date timeline of Trump Russia Scandals.
Featured image: Screenshot Via YouTube Video.
